Chateau Chronicles – Taking The Leap
A run-down Maison de Maitre in Avignon
The secret garden in Avignon
So much style and charm
Our personal outdoor dining experience (and our nightly bottle of rosé!)
Chateau Ladausse hospitality!
Chateau Borie
A view of the house coming up the driveway
The caretaker’s house (left) built into the cliff wall
There’s quite a bit to catch up on… First off, I took another trip to France in May 2022 and this time my niece joined me. She had just finished her first year at Dalhousie University and a planned trip to Europe with friends fell through, so I leaped at the chance to have company on my trip and within 20 minutes of having the conversation, her flight was booked!
At first, it seemed that the property viewing aspect of the trip was going to be a bust. Three of the viewings I had scheduled were canceled when the properties went under offer. So we had lots of time to sightsee in Provence… Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Arles, all while staying in Carpentras. Finally, around day 4 or 5, we saw our first property - a Maison de Maitre in Avignon. It had a magical garden, and yet was on a city street complete with a tram line, so very convenient. The house itself was lovely, but limited… 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a configuration that would make hosting a retreat difficult. Oh, but the garden was glorious (and would require quite a bit of work to bring it back to its former splendor.
Next, we visited a village house in a sweet country-side Provençal town that was like a museum, filled with artifacts and paintings and wonderful style. It was hard to see past all the great style to recognize the house for what it was. A house. Not suited to hosting retreats which is my goal.
The nice thing about this trip was that I was a little clearer about what I was looking for.
We had a lovely taste of Chateau living at the beautiful Chateau Ladausse and became friends with Diane and Eric who run it. The place is breathtakingly beautiful and Diane is a chef from Chicago and whipped us up a couple of amazing dinners (one was part of a cooking class with some of the other guests).
Chateau Ladausse and the buzzing tree
The most delicious Mediterranean dinner!
We visited a dream chateau that was way out of the price range but I was concocting ways of how I could make it work financially.
We visited a chateau featured on the BBC show Escape to the Chateau DIY that would be way too much of a fixer-upper for me alone.
And finally, on our 2nd to last day in France, we visited a property in Agen. I honestly expected it to be a dud. The pictures online made it look drab and grey, but I was intrigued by the geography of the place… a series of what looked like caves and buildings built into the cliff-face.
And it turned out to be the greatest surprise. The house was in good shape, albeit with a strange layout of bathrooms. But the heat, electricity, plumbing, and roof were all done which is huge in chateau-land. And the price was one I could manage (just). We walked around in a daze, not even remembering to take videos or enough photos. We didn’t explore the caretaker’s cottage or the cliff above. All that afternoon, my niece and I talked about making an offer and by cocktail hour, the offer was in… a lowball. They refused but came down. By the next morning, I offered a little more and was accepted, but despite begging to go back, the realtors both had other engagements and couldn’t show me the house again.
And so I left France feeling like a crazy person.
And for the entire month of June, I have been learning hard lessons about French bureaucracy and “Notaires” and “Promesse de Vente” and the difficulty of getting what you need when there’s a 9-hour time difference. Today marked the day I was supposed to have the “Promesse de Vente” signed and the deposit paid, but I only received the document this morning and wiring instructions that were confusing at best to follow. Banks in the US are off for Juneteeth (which I struggled to explain in French). I have been giving Google Translate a solid workout, but hopefully, all will be ironed out this week and I will be one step closer to an early September closing.
Miss O, off for two weeks from her grueling school schedule now has me all set up on social media, so if you want to follow along, here’s the “Chateau Chronicles” Instagram (@chateauchronicles) and there will also eventually be a YouTube channel (scary to think I will need to post videos! What will happen to my beloved, insular, diary-blog?).
The bakery with a chimney built through the cliff wall
I hope you will join me in the insanity of this dream. Judging from the responses I’ve been getting, I think I have tapped into some kind of dreamer in all of us. I also think I might have a lot of volunteers to help me along the way!
Excited and terrified to begin this new chapter.
The view from one of the porthole windows